Well, naturally, the day after I post on TVspy that one of the prime differentiators between VJ and OMB is that we don’t do stand-ups, KGTV/10 VJ Joe Little sends me a link to a Youtube posting that proves me wrong.

OK.

For the most part, I don’t like stand-ups. For Joe, I am willing to make an exception.

Six years ago, I met Philip Hilven for a drink at the Heathrow Hilton.

Philip was working for Concentra, one of the larger publishing companies in Belgium.

Concentra was in the newspaper business, but they were dabbbling in local cable TV. Philip had heard my speak in Barcelona a few years before, and had grown enamored with the VJ concept. After the drink and dinner he invited me to come to Belgium and to work with Concentra.

The stations (there are now four), built entirely on the VJ model, are today the most profitable part of the Concentra Media Group.

The company was so taken with the concept, that the following year, they started offering a prize for the best VJ work – first in Europe, but starting last year, anywhere in the world.

Today, with the dollar where it is, and the Euro where it is, the prize for 2009 is currently worth $15,000 (plus an all expense paid trip to Brussels for the awards ceremony, March 5th).

Today we conclude another session of the Travel Channel Academy in NY. This afternoon, we will certify another 40 gradautes of the Academy. We have sessions scheduled for 2009 in NY, DC and Santa Barbara, but places are already filling up. Take a look.

A shy New Jersey chiaropractor suffers a stroke on a golf course, and his life is suddenly transformed. He can’t stop making art.

We were out in Newark this week at a mass meeting to talk about new directions for the paper. As the largest newspaper in New Jersey, and as New Jersey is the only state in the US without a major network TV news operation, we think the potenial here is limitless.

Contrary to popular rumor, the paper is not going out of business. It has shed a great deal of its costs however, and is now lean and mean and ready to embrace a new digital and video future.

The promo above is but a tease for a video/print special release this weekend.

This isn’t dodgy hand-held video. And it’s great reporting as well.

We think it’s a preview, not just for the weekend, but for the future of online journalism as well.. and newspapers.

He sends me a link from The Guardian, that BILD, the German newspaper has partnered with a German supermarket to sell small cameras and field an army of citizen journalists to feed the paper’s website.

Sounds good to me, but I think they need a training course!

Germany’s bestselling newspaper is looking to expand without the expense of actually hiring new reporters.

Bild has joined up with discount supermarket chain Lidl to sell a basic digital camera to a legion of citizen journalists, who the tabloid hopes will contribute images to its coverage.

“We can’t cover everything,” said Michael Paustian, a Bild managing editor. “We think it is an advance for journalism.”

The pocket-sized camera has 2GB of memory, can shoot still pictures and video, and costs &euro;69.99 (&pound;60). It comes with software and a USB port that allows “reader-reporters” to upload content directly to editors who will be assigned to review it for publication.

Bild spokesman Tobias Fr&ouml;hlich said the goal was to encourage camera owners to seek the widest exposure for their work. “It’s not about exclusivity,” he said.

The move fits in with a broader trend for traditional media to turn their increasingly interactive readers into news providers.

Vancouver-based NowPublic.com gathers photographs, video clips and news tips from the public and distributes them to news organisations. The trend is likely to continue as traditional news providers scramble to match the migration of readers and advertisers to the internet.

Bild, known for breaking major political stories as well as front-page splashes on zoo animals and celebrities, will use the new cameras to streamline an existing scheme that brings in thousands of photos each day by email and text message, Fr&ouml;hlich said. The paper has published 9,000 of those images since 2006.

He said Bild may pay for the best ones it uses or establish a contest for the best content submitted each week; details would be worked out after gauging demand for the cameras that go on sale today.

Some worry that Bild’s new media experiment will lower standards and interfere with professional reporting.

“It poses a threat to quality journalism, the more images from non-professionals that are pushed on to the market even though professional images are available,” said Eva Werner, a spokeswoman for the German Journalists’ Association

But Paustian thought the opposite was true. “We’re not YouTube,” he said. “Every contribution will be viewed, reviewed and journalistically evaluated.”